


No Good Deed

by Lady_Therion



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 22:55:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20496695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Therion/pseuds/Lady_Therion
Summary: In which Jude cannot resist.





	No Good Deed

**Author's Note:**

> "I can resist everything except temptation.”—Oscar Wilde

She still hates him.

This is what Jude tells herself as she rides the High King like one of Madoc’s coursers. She’s become _ very _ good at this now. A veritable expert in all the ways she can make Cardan beg. And oh, how she _ craves _his begging. He does it so beautifully that she resents him for it. A painting of ecstasy and euphoria come to life. Meanwhile, here she is: sweat-soaked and overwrought. 

The begging makes up for it, though. The way he bucks and arches beneath her, seeking relief he knows he won’t get (not on his own terms, anyway). The way he claws and rips up the sheets whimpering, “Please, please, _ please… _” as if in prayer, as if in pain. 

His submission thrills her beyond reckoning. The vulgarity of it should shock her, shame her. But she can’t seem to feel much of either nowadays. Is _ this _is what it truly means to be one of the Folk? The thought doesn’t bring her any comfort, so she sinks her nails into the flesh of Cardan’s shoulders in retribution. She does it hard enough to leave bruises.

At that, his night-dark eyes screw shut as the ripple of his orgasm tears through them both. She clenches around his hot length, grinding down in a harsh and unrelenting pace as he cries out her name. All of Elfhame and beyond would have been able to hear it. Thank the gods for silencing charms. As things are, Jude is the only one to feel the after-effects of his completion. 

Perhaps its Cardan’s innate connection with their kingdom, but everything always seems to glow afterward. Jude can practically _ taste _his magic. It fills the air and makes her think of green, growing things. It sweeps along the gooseflesh of her skin and tangles itself with the wild beat of her racing heart. Flowers appear where there were none before: twining around the headboard of Cardan’s obscenely ornate bed.

Cardan takes her fingers and kisses them slowly, bleary-eyed and exhausted from pleasure. He always gets like that after he comes. Soft and fragile with all traces of cruelty wiped away. That frightens her more than when he’s being heartless with her. So she snatches her fingers away and ignores his shuttered expression as she rolls off of him to find her clothes. 

“Jude—” he begins. 

“It’s late.” 

“I just…”

“Don’t.” 

A pause. “Fine. Until next time then?”

There is a familiar note of arrogance in his words, but beneath that, something else. Something like hurt. But in order for him to feel hurt, he would have to care for her. And if there is one lesson she learned while living under Madoc’s roof and Madoc’s rules it's that no one in Faerie cares about anything except power. 

So she says nothing to Cardan. Instead, she disappears down the passage that connects her chambers to his without so much as a backward glance. 

* * *

Their trysts are infrequent and ill-timed.

Neither of them remark on them though. Jude, especially. To acknowledge them would mean acknowledging the darker corners of their relationship. Somehow, they came to the mutual agreement that whatever happens in dark corners should stay there. It surprises her how discrete Cardan is about it. She waits for him to say all kinds of horribly conceited insults about human weaknesses. But he never does. Though in order for him to do that, he’d have to admit that _ he _is a weakness. So, if anything, she has him there. 

She’ll take whatever small comforts she can.

This time, they find themselves in a private alcove right next to the council room. In less than an hour, the High King’s advisors would arrive to berate them for their shortcomings. Madoc would be there and, like all previous meetings, would keep silent. It’s one of his favorite maneuvers: conceal his intentions, assess his advantages, and let the others ravage each other as they clamored for power or favor. Then he would pick off whoever is left. 

Right now, Jude doesn’t want to think about politics. Instead, she thinks about the length of Cardan’s gorgeously slick cock gliding in and out of her mouth. 

“Jude...ah, _ Jude _…” 

She has him shivering against the damp stone wall, breeches at his ankles. It’s a vulnerable position. Before they began to know one another in bed, she had always thought this act to be degrading. Now she realizes that it is anything but. It is probably the only form of intimacy shared between them that makes her feel like she has the upper hand. Like this, with Cardan gasping and biting his knuckles to keep quiet, she feels invincible. Like this, all thoughts of her own mortality and mayfly life melt away. 

Jude’s become good at this, too. Great, even. Or maybe it’s because she’s learned to read him better: the hitches in his breath, the lashes of his tail, the random tears that pool at the corner of his eyes as his lips part in a rapturous ‘o’. That’s when she knows she has him in her grasp. He would probably do anything she asked of him, then. Without the vow she trapped him in. 

The thought is so heady that she could feel herself grow wet between her thighs.

Jude takes the whole of him until he hits the back of her throat. Cardan pounds the stone wall with his fist as she alternates between suckling him and stroking him with her hand. She does it with a practiced twist and it’s not long before she tastes the hot, salty spurts of him on her tongue. 

He’s all flushed and shattered-looking as she swallows every last drop. If only she had a camera. She wants to engrave this in her memory. 

“Jude...I…” 

She doesn’t want to hear it. “We should get ready.” 

He stills. Then sighs. 

Later on, he sits across from her in the council room as though nothing happened. If the advisors sense anything different, they did not show it. Although they did comment afterward on how the High King’s ill temper seemed to dull as of late. Perhaps there is something to be said of his mortal seneschal after all. 

Jude wants to bask in the compliment. It’s supposed to be a triumph. 

But it doesn’t feel like it at all. 

* * *

Later, much later, she opens her heart to him. Just the once. 

_ Jude...Are you afraid of me? _

Yes. She is always afraid. She has been terrified since the day Madoc cut her parents down and left them to bleed all over the living room rug. Then he took that fear and whetted into something else. Now Jude is a creature that belongs to neither the world of humans or the world of the fae. There is no place for her anywhere. And that, in the end, is what truly terrifies her: that Cardan was right all along. 

And then he made her his Queen. 

And then, a long, long fall.

* * *

When the High King was born, the stars spoke of his destiny as one would speak of a dark omen. Cardan was never meant to rule, and yet there he sat on the throne, surrounded by a fractious court and countless enemies. But the faeries love a good revel, and what better way to spend it than by celebrating their king’s birth? Mortals would have found it distasteful. And in truth, the Folk did as well. The only difference is that the more distasteful it is, the more delight they took from it. 

Jude understands what that’s like. 

Here she is nothing and no one, once more. In fact, she is worse than nothing. Her family renounced her. Her king had banished her. But here’s the thing about having nothing to lose: fear no longer chains you. And Jude has never, ever felt so free. 

Jude holds onto that freedom as she approaches Cardan’s throne, face hidden beneath a courtier’s mask. She still hates him, she thinks. The thought runs through her like a mantra as she gets closer. Somehow, he _ knows. _It’s the preternatural pause in his gestures, the slight flare of his nostrils, and the slight tap of his tail (which he no longer keeps hidden). He knows, and yet he does not stop her. In fact, he looks relieved. As if he welcomes whatever black fate she plans for him. 

This time, she doesn’t falter. 

Quicker than death, an iron blade is pressed against the skin of the High King’s throat. Then Cardan smiles, teeth flashing in all-too familiar sneer. 

“Hello, Jude.” 

A drop of blood falls on her whitened knuckles. 

“Happy birthday, dear husband.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, my lovelies. This fic also takes place in the same universe as 'No Strings Attached' in case you were wondering :)


End file.
